Assigning social networking system users to households

ABSTRACT

Users of a social networking system are assigned to households using prediction models that rely, in part, on user profile information and social graph data. Information about users may be received by a social networking system through various channels (e.g., declared/profile information, user history, IP addresses, Global Positioning System (GPS) data from check-in events and/or continuously provided by mobile devices, external household information, and/or social information). Scoring models may use statistical analysis of the received user information to predict household membership for users. User attributes, such as previous names, date of birth, social graph data, locations, life events, and check-ins, may be factors in generating confidence scores of predicted household memberships. Weighted scoring models may use machine learning methods for measuring the accuracy of the household membership prediction. The social networking system may use a machine learning algorithm to analyze user information to determine confidence scores for matching potential households.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates generally to social networking, and in particularto assigning users of a social networking system to households fortracking advertising metrics.

Traditional market researchers rely on panels of sample households totrack various metrics. For example, a market researcher may identify ahousehold that includes a married couple with one child to represent theconsumption and spending habits of a million households based on themetrics surveyed by the market researcher. Advertisers, in an effort toprovide relevant advertisements, may use this market research to targettheir advertisements based on the metrics obtained from these panels ofsample households. Market researchers may track these households, whichmay change in composition and geographic location, using magazinesubscriptions, state department of motor vehicle registrations, andvoter registration records. As a result, market researchers mayeffectively estimate how certain demographics, such as males aged 20-24,may react to a certain advertisement based on the past consumptionbehaviors of the panels of sample households.

In recent years, users of social networking systems have shared theirinterests and engaged with other users of the social networking systemsby sharing photos, real-time status updates, playing social games, andsharing their geographic locations. The amount of information gatheredfrom users is staggering—especially as users have adopted mobile devicesthat enable users to update their close friends and acquaintances on thesocial networking system with their locations and interests inreal-time, at any hour of the day. Social networking systems have beenpassively recording this information as part of the user experience, butsocial networking systems have lacked tools to use market researchinformation in tracking advertising metrics.

Specifically, user information available on a social networking systemhas not been used to assign users of the social networking system tohouseholds relied upon by market researchers. Market researchers thatseek to provide insight on how a target demographic of users of a socialnetworking system may react to viewing content, such as watching andinteracting with an advertisement for a travel destination, may beunable to identify the users on the social networking system that areincluded in the households because of privacy issues as well asuncertainty about the authenticity of the users. Consequently, existingsystems have not been able to accurately identify sample households ofusers that may be used to represent populations of users of socialnetworking systems.

SUMMARY

Users of a social networking system may be assigned to households usingprediction models that rely, in part, on user profile information andsocial graph data. Information about users may be received by a socialnetworking system through various channels (e.g., declared/profileinformation, user history, IP addresses, Global Positioning System (GPS)data from check-in events and/or continuously provided by mobiledevices, external household information, and/or social information). Thescoring models may rely on statistical analysis of the received userinformation to predict household membership for users of the socialnetworking system. User attributes, such as previous names, date ofbirth, social graph data, locations, life events, and check-ins, may beused as factors in generating confidence scores of predicted householdmemberships. Weighted scoring models may be generated and trained usingmachine learning methods using information about the accuracy of thehousehold membership prediction. In one embodiment, the socialnetworking system uses a machine learning algorithm to analyze userinformation to determine confidence scores for matching potentialhouseholds.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is high-level block diagram illustrating a process of assigningusers of a social networking system to households, in accordance with anembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a network diagram of a system for assigning users of a socialnetworking system to households, showing a block diagram of the socialnetworking system, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is high-level block diagram illustrating a household predictionmodule that includes various modules for assigning users of a socialnetworking system to households, in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a process of assigning users of a socialnetworking system to households, in accordance with an embodiment of theinvention.

The figures depict various embodiments of the present invention forpurposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readilyrecognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments ofthe structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed withoutdeparting from the principles of the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

A social networking system offers its users the ability to communicateand interact with other users of the social networking system. Usersjoin the social networking system and add connections to a number ofother users to whom they desire to be connected. Users of socialnetworking system can provide information describing them, which isstored as user profiles. For example, users can provide their age,gender, geographical location, education history, employment history andthe like. The information provided by users may be used by the socialnetworking system to direct information to the user. For example, thesocial networking system may recommend social groups, events, andpotential friends to a user. The social networking system may also useuser profile to direct advertisements to the user, ensuring that onlyrelevant advertisements are directed to the user. Relevantadvertisements ensure that advertising spending reaches their intendedaudiences, rather than wasting shrinking resources on users that arelikely to ignore the advertisement.

In addition to declarative information provided by users, socialnetworking systems may also record users' actions on the socialnetworking system. These actions include communications with otherusers, sharing photos, interactions with applications that operate onthe social networking system, such as a social gaming application,responding to a poll, adding an interest, and joining an employeenetwork. A social networking system may also be able to capture externalwebsite data that is accessed by its users. This external website datamay include websites that are frequently visited, links that areselected, and other browsing data. Information about users, such asstronger interests in particular users and applications than othersbased on their behavior, can be generated from these recorded actionsthrough analysis and machine learning by the social networking system.

Further, a user profile for a user is often not complete, and it may notbe completely accurate. For example, users may deliberately provideincorrect information, such as providing incorrect age in the userprofile. Users may also forget to update their information when itchanges. For example, a user may move to a new location and forget toupdate the user's geographical location, or a user may change jobs butforget to update the workplace description in his or her user profile.As a result, a social networking system may infer certain profileattributes of a user, such as geographic location, educationalinstitutions attended, and age range, by analyzing the user'sconnections and their declared profile information. Inferring profileattributes are further discussed in U.S. application Ser. No.12/916,322, filed on Oct. 29, 2010, which is hereby incorporated byreference.

Location information about users may be received by the socialnetworking system through various communication channels. Users maydesignate a current home location in their profiles on the socialnetworking system. Users may also indicate their presence at events thatinclude geographic locations, such as an address of a bar where acocktail party is being attended. Users may also share their geographiclocation with other users of the social networking system in real-timeusing GPS-enabled mobile devices. In one embodiment, a user's IP addressmay be mapped to a particular geographic region by the social networkingsystem. Location information about other users connected to a user onthe social networking system may be used to infer the location of theuser. Inferring locations of users of a social networking system isfurther discussed in “Predicting Locations of Users of a SocialNetworking System,” U.S. application Ser. No. 13/235,206, filed on Sep.16, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference.

Market researchers rely on panels of households in measuring theconsumption and viewing habits of different markets of the world.Households may be defined as groups of people that have been selected torepresent populations based on their characteristics. Market researchersuse households to provide statistically valid measurements of theeffectiveness of advertising campaigns to advertisers, track purchasesof products across different demographics, and analyze the reach andfrequency of households viewing content, such as advertisements or othermedia. Third-party market researchers may enable a social networkingsystem to identify members of households among the users of the socialnetworking system.

FIG. 1 illustrates a high-level block diagram of a process for assigningusers of a social networking system to households, in one embodiment.The social networking system 100 uses different types of informationabout users in the process of predicting household membership of users,including user profile objects 102, an action log 104, edge objects 106,content objects 108, external household data 110, and timeline data 112.Each user of the social networking system 100 is associated with aspecific user profile object 102. These user profile objects 102 includedeclarative information about the user that was explicitly shared by theuser as well as any profile information inferred by the socialnetworking system 100. In one embodiment, a user profile object 102 mayinclude one or more different data fields, each data field describing anattribute of the corresponding user of the social networking system 100.One data field in the user profile object 102 for a first user mayinclude an association with another user profile object 102 for a seconduser indicating that the first user and the second user are living inthe same household.

Users of the social networking system 100 may take actions using thesocial networking system 100 that are associated with one or moreobjects. Information describing these actions is stored in the actionlog 104. The action log 104 includes many different types ofinteractions that occur on a social networking system, includingattending an event that includes a physical location, checking-in at aphysical location using a GPS-enabled user device, and tagging locationsin content items, such as a status message, video, and photo album.Additionally, the action log 104 records a user's interactions withobjects on the social networking system 100, such as a poll questionthat asks whether the user is connected to another user in a household.

Edge objects 106 store information about users' connections on a socialnetworking system 100. Such information may include the interactionsbetween the user and other objects on the social networking system 100,including wall posts, comments on photos, geographic places, and tags inphotos. Edge objects 106 may also include location information of otherusers of the social networking system 100 that are connected to a user.For example, a user may be “checked-in” by another user of the socialnetworking system 100 using a GPS-enabled user device. As a result, thelocation information captured by the GPS-enabled user device may bestored in the edge object 106 between the users of the social networkingsystem 100. Further, the edge object 106 between the connected usersincluded in the check-in event may indicate that the connection isstronger than the connection between users that do not interact witheach other as frequently. This type of connection information, extractedfrom edge objects 106, may be used by the social networking system 100in assigning users of the social networking system 100 to households.

Users may interact with various content objects 108 on the socialnetworking system 100, such as videos, photos, events, check-in events,status messages, and the like. Content objects 108 may includegeographic location information about a user. For example, if a usertags another user in a status update in San Francisco very frequentlyover an extended time period, the social networking system 100 may usethat information in assigning the users to a household during that timeperiod. Other content objects 108, such as photos and check-in events,may also have information that may be extracted by the social networkingsystem 100 to be used in assigning users to households.

External household data 110 may be used by a social networking system100 to predict locations of users. External household data 110 mayinclude offline household information retrieved by the social networkingsystem 100 from one or more third-party external systems, such asdepartment of motor vehicle records, magazine subscriptions, voterregistration records, postal service mailing address changes, catalogs,and other transactional data, such as purchasing data at retailers. Thisexternal household data 110 may include information about households,such as names of persons living in a household, an address associatedwith a household, previous addresses associated with a household,vehicles owned by members of a household, magazines subscribed to bymembers of a household, television shows and other media consumed bymembers of a household, contact information about members of thehousehold, and the like. The social networking system 100 may useexternal household data 110 in assigning users of the social networkingsystem 100 to households using previous names, addresses, and contactinformation extracted from the external household data 110, in oneembodiment.

In another embodiment, external household data 110 includes IP addresslocation mapping information that may be used by a social networkingsystem 100 to map users' IP addresses to geographic locations. A userconnects to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) thatassigns an IP address to the user. The social networking system 100 mayretrieve the user's IP address and use the IP address location mappinginformation to identify a geographic location that is associated withthe user's IP address. Using the geographic location mapped by the IPaddress, the social networking system 100 may better predict thehousehold membership for the user associated with the IP address.

Timeline data 112 may be received by the social networking system 100 inresponse to a user updating events on a timeline for the user, in oneembodiment. A timeline for a user of the social networking system 100represents a collection of events and actions that are indicated asmeaningful to the user, in one embodiment. These events and actions mayinclude making new connections on the social networking system 100,installing and using applications on the social networking system 100,posting check-in events in a certain geographic location during acertain time period, uploading photos that are relevant to a specificevent, such as a vacation, and lifetime events marked by a user asimportant, such as moving to a new city, starting a new job, graduatingfrom college, starting and/or ending a romantic relationship, the birthof children, engagements, marriages, and the like. Timeline data 112 mayinclude a reference to content objects representing these events andactions, such as edge objects 106 and content objects 108. Timeline data112 may be given special weight in assigning users to households basedon the user's indication that the event or action has specialsignificance as a “lifetime event,” in one embodiment.

Membership in households for users of a social networking system 100 maybe predicted using a household prediction module 114. The householdprediction module 114 uses information received about users of thesocial networking system 100 to generate household predictions for theusers as well as confidence scores in those household predications forthe users. This information is gathered from user profile objects 102,the action log 104, edge objects 106, content objects 108, externalhousehold data 110, and timeline data 112, as described above. Thehousehold prediction module 114 uses this information in at least onescoring model for assigning users to households. As more information isgathered about users of the social networking system 100, the householdprediction module 114 may alter a scoring model for assigning users tohouseholds, giving more or less weight to a specific type ofinformation, such as check-in events generated by users, externalhousehold data, information about other users connected to the user, andcurrent locations listed in user profiles.

In one embodiment, the household prediction module 114 may classifyusers into various types of households, such as a single household, amarried household, a non-married coupled household, and a familyhousehold with one or more children. The household prediction module 114may use one or more fields in the user profile objects 102 associatedwith users that indicate familial relationships, such as being a son ordaughter of one or more users, being married to a user, being the parentof one or more children, and so on. For example, a user with a childunder the age of 18 may be assumed to live with the child. Thus, theuser profile objects 102 associated with the parent and child may becategorized as a family household. This household classification may, inone embodiment, be used to assign users to households gathered fromexternal household data 110.

Household objects 116 may be generated by the household predictionmodule 114. Household objects 116 may include an indication of a userthat represents the head of household. A head of household may bedefined as a user that files for federal income taxes as a head ofhousehold. A household object 116 also may list the names of personsincluded in the household represented by the household object 116. Thehousehold prediction module 114 may assign users of the socialnetworking system 100 to a household by associating the household object116 with user profile objects 102 associated with the users. In oneembodiment, a user may be associated with multiple household objects 116with separate confidence scores for the household objects 116. Forexample, a user under the age of 18 that splits her time between twoparents may be part of two households. As another example, users thatwere roommates during a certain time period may be associated with ahousehold object even after the users have ceased living together.

The household prediction module 114 may assign users to householdobjects 116 based on information gathered about the users of the socialnetworking system 100, including user profile objects 102, action log104, edge objects 106, content objects 108, external household data 110,and timeline data 112. A scoring model may be generated to determine aconfidence score for each household membership prediction based onweighted factors, such as name correlation, location correlation,interest correlation, and social graph correlation. For example, a usernamed “John Smith” may potentially be associated with thousands ofhouseholds. Using information extracted from the user profile object 102associated with the user, the potential households may be narrowed tothose near the current city where the user resides. The householdprediction module 114 may also extrapolate the user's name to includevariations and misspellings such as “J Smith,” “Smith John,” “J. A.Smith,” “Johnny Smith,” “Jon Smith,” “John Smythe,” and the like. Namecorrelation would measure how close the names match between the nameextracted from a user profile object 102 and a name included in ahousehold object 116. Similarly, a location correlation may indicate howclose the location indicated for a household matches the location of auser of the social networking system 100.

In one embodiment, interests listed in the potential user profileobjects 102 may be matched with external household data 110 abouthouseholds that include a “John Smith.” For example, users with aninterest in sports may be matched to households associated with externalhousehold data 110 indicating magazine subscriptions to SportsIllustrated and Golf magazine. In this case, an interest correlation maybe a positive correlation because interests extracted from the externalhousehold data 110 match with interests for the users. Finally, socialgraph correlation may indicate whether the social relationship indicatedin a household matches the social graph relationship of users in thesocial networking system 100. For example, a household that includes twomembers, a married couple, may be associated with two users that haveindicated they are married to each other. The social graph correlationwould be 1.0 because the users social graph relationship, their marriedstatus, correlates directly with the social graph relationship indicatedin the household. One or more scoring models may be generated todetermine confidence scores for assigning users to households based onthese correlations.

System Architecture

FIG. 2 is a high-level block diagram illustrating a system environmentsuitable for predicting locations of users based on social networkinginformation, in accordance with an embodiment of the invention. Thesystem environment comprises one or more user devices 202, the socialnetworking system 100, a network 204, and external websites 218. Inalternative configurations, different and/or additional modules can beincluded in the system.

The user devices 202 comprise one or more computing devices that canreceive user input and can transmit and receive data via the network204. In one embodiment, the user device 202 is a conventional computersystem executing, for example, a Microsoft Windows-compatible operatingsystem (OS), Apple OS X, and/or a Linux distribution. In anotherembodiment, the user device 202 can be a device having computerfunctionality, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), mobiletelephone, smart-phone, etc. The user device 202 is configured tocommunicate via network 204. The user device 202 can execute anapplication, for example, a browser application that allows a user ofthe user device 202 to interact with the social networking system 100.In another embodiment, the user device 202 interacts with the socialnetworking system 100 through an application programming interface (API)that runs on the native operating system of the user device 202, such asiOS and ANDROID.

In one embodiment, the network 204 uses standard communicationstechnologies and/or protocols. Thus, the network 204 can include linksusing technologies such as Ethernet, 802.11, worldwide interoperabilityfor microwave access (WiMAX), 3G, 4G, CDMA, digital subscriber line(DSL), etc. Similarly, the networking protocols used on the network 204can include multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), the transmissioncontrol protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), the User Datagram Protocol(UDP), the hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), the simple mail transferprotocol (SMTP), and the file transfer protocol (FTP). The dataexchanged over the network 204 can be represented using technologiesand/or formats including the hypertext markup language (HTML) and theextensible markup language (XML). In addition, all or some of links canbe encrypted using conventional encryption technologies such as securesockets layer (SSL), transport layer security (TLS), and InternetProtocol security (IPsec).

FIG. 2 contains a block diagram of the social networking system 100. Thesocial networking system 100 includes a user profile store 206, a webserver 208, an action logger 210, a content store 212, an edge store214, a household selection module 216, a household prediction module112, and a household store 220. In other embodiments, the socialnetworking system 100 may include additional, fewer, or differentmodules for various applications. Conventional components such asnetwork interfaces, security functions, load balancers, failoverservers, management and network operations consoles, and the like arenot shown so as to not obscure the details of the system.

The web server 208 links the social networking system 100 via thenetwork 204 to one or more user devices 202; the web server 208 servesweb pages, as well as other web-related content, such as Java, Flash,XML, and so forth. The web server 208 may provide the functionality ofreceiving and routing messages between the social networking system 100and the user devices 202, for example, instant messages, queued messages(e.g., email), text and SMS (short message service) messages, ormessages sent using any other suitable messaging technique. The user cansend a request to the web server 208 to upload information, for example,images or videos that are stored in the content store 212. Additionally,the web server 208 may provide API functionality to send data directlyto native user device operating systems, such as iOS, ANDROID, webOS,and RIM.

Household objects 116 are generated by the household prediction module114 in the social networking system 100, in one embodiment. As a user ofthe social networking system 100 is potentially matched to a household,a household object 116 for the household may be generated by thehousehold prediction module 114. In another embodiment, householdobjects 116 are generated by a separate process. In yet anotherembodiment, a household object 116 is generated by the householdprediction module 114 if one has not already been generated uponpotentially matching a user of the social networking system 100 to thehousehold. The household prediction module 114 generates householdobjects 116 for users of the social networking system 100 based oninformation about the households extracted from external household data110 gathered from external websites 218. Household objects 116 arestored in the household store 220 for access by other modules of thesocial networking system 100. Household objects 116 representinghouseholds that have been determined to include selected users areassociated with the selected users' user profile objects 102 stored inthe user profile store 206, in one embodiment.

The action logger 210 is capable of receiving communications from theweb server 208 about user actions on and/or off the social networkingsystem 100. The action logger 210 populates the action log 104 withinformation about user actions to track them. Such actions may include,for example, adding a connection to the other user, sending a message tothe other user, uploading an image, reading a message from the otheruser, viewing content associated with the other user, attending an eventposted by another user, among others. In addition, a number of actionsdescribed in connection with other objects are directed at particularusers, so these actions are associated with those users as well.

User account information and other related information for a user arestored in the user profile store 206. The user profile stored in userprofile store 206 describes the users of the social networking system100, including biographic, demographic, and other types of descriptiveinformation, such as work experience, educational history, gender,hobbies or preferences, location, and the like. The user profile mayalso store other information provided by the user, for example, imagesor videos. In certain embodiments, images of users may be tagged withidentification information of users of the social networking system 100displayed in an image. A user profile store 206 maintains profileinformation about users of the social networking system 100, such asage, gender, interests, geographic location, email addresses, creditcard information, and other personalized information. The user profilestore 206 also maintains references to the actions stored in the actionlog 104 and performed on objects in the content store 212, in oneembodiment.

The edge store 214 stores the information describing connections betweenusers and other objects on the social networking system 100. Some edgesmay be defined by users, allowing users to specify their relationshipswith other users. For example, users may generate edges with other usersthat parallel the users' real-life relationships, such as friends,co-workers, partners, spouses, and so forth. Other edges are generatedwhen users interact with objects in the social networking system 100,such as expressing interest in a page on the social networking system,sharing a link with other users of the social networking system, andcommenting on posts made by other users of the social networking system.The edge store 214 stores edge objects that include information aboutthe edge, such as affinity scores for objects, interests, and otherusers.

The content store 212 stores content objects 108, such as photos,videos, status updates, and content items shared with users of thesocial networking system 100. Location information may be embedded in acontent object 108, such as a digital photo in exchangeable image fileformat (EXIF). For example, a user may upload a photo from his mobiledevice to the social networking system 100. The location informationembedded in the photo may be used to predict the location of the user.Other types of content objects 108, such as pages on the socialnetworking system 100 that represent interests of users of the socialnetworking system 100, places, businesses and other real-world entities,as well as external websites 218, are stored in the content store 212.User interactions with content objects 108 are stored in edge objects106 in the edge store 214.

Household objects 116 are stored in the household store 220. Householdobjects 116 represent households that may vary in granularity, fromsingle households, roommate households, married households, familyhouseholds, and extended family households. Household objects 116 may beassociated with user profile objects 102 for users of the socialnetworking system with varying confidence scores. Confidence scores aregenerated by the household prediction module 114 upon associating userswith households. Separate confidence scores may be associated withdifferent household objects 116 when a user is associated with more thanone household. Confidence scores may be determined using scoring modelsthat use information about users, such as previous names, date of birth,location, life events, and check-ins.

For example, household objects 116 may be generated by the householdprediction module 114 based on the received information about the user.One of the household objects 116 may include a prediction with aconfidence score of 25 (where 1 is the lower bound and infinity is theupper bound) that the user is a member of the household. This householdobject 116 may be located in San Francisco, Calif. based on the receivedinformation linking the user and household, such as catalogs deliveredto the user through the postal service. A separate confidence score maybe associated with a different household object for another householdlocated in Dallas, Tex. based on other information linking the user andthe other household, such as a previous address on a department of motorvehicles record indicating that the user currently lives in Dallas, Tex.Confidence scores may be generated independent of each other. In oneembodiment, conflicting household membership predictions, such as thisinstance, may be resolved by the household prediction module 114 usingmachine learning methods and weighted scoring models. In anotherembodiment, both household membership predictions are stored byassociating the user's user profile object 102 with the two differenthousehold objects 116 with the two confidence scores. As a result, othermodules using household information about the user may treat theinformation according to the confidences scores.

As another example, a household object 116 may be generated by thehousehold prediction module 114 for a user based on a social graphcorrelation with a household. A social graph correlation may bedetermined based on high affinity scores between users, meaning that theusers interact frequently on the social networking system 100. Inanother embodiment, a social graph correlation may be determined basedon relationship status indicated in user profile objects 102 for users,such as a parent-child relationship, marriage, or domestic partnership.As a result of the social graph correlation, the users are associatedwith the household such that the users' user profile objects 102 areassociated with the household object 116 for the household.

A household selection module 216 may be used by the social networkingsystem 100 to select household objects 116 that have already beengenerated for assigning users of the social networking system 100 tohouseholds. As mentioned, household objects 116 may be generated by thehousehold prediction module 114 upon assigning users to households, ormay be generated by a separate process. The household selection module216 selects household objects 116 that have been generated for assigningusers to households represented by the household objects 116. In oneembodiment, the household prediction module 114 uses the householdselection module 216 to select household objects 116 from the householdstore 220 that may be potential matches for a user based on receivedinformation that may link the user and the household. If a householdobject 116 is not found by the household selection module 216, thehousehold prediction module 114 generates the household object 116. Uponrequest for a household object 116, the household selection module 216may provide a shared key that identifies the household object 116 to theentity performing the request. In one embodiment, the social networkingsystem 100 may request the shared key. In another embodiment, athird-party vendor may request the shared key.

Generating Household Predictions for Users of a Social Networking System

FIG. 3 illustrates a high-level block diagram of the householdprediction module 114 in further detail, in one embodiment. Thehousehold prediction module 114 includes a data gathering module 300, astatistical analysis module 302, a user attribute analysis module 304, aconfidence module 306, a heuristics analysis module 308, and a machinelearning module 310. These modules may perform in conjunction with eachother or independently to generate location predictions for users of asocial networking system 100.

A data gathering module 300 aggregates information linking users of thesocial networking system 100 to households. The data gathering module300 may retrieve household information about users of the socialnetworking system 100 from external systems, such as external householddata 110 retrieved from external websites 218. Additionally, third-partyvendors may be given access to a shared database on the socialnetworking system 100 that provides external household data 110 to thesocial networking system 100 without sacrificing the privacy of users ofthe social networking system 100. Once the external household data 110is analyzed to generate or select household objects 116, the users ofthe social networking system 100 may be assigned to households forfurther analysis. After the analysis is complete, data from householdsmay be aggregated and the combined external household data 110 and userprofiles may be destroyed to protect the privacy of users of the socialnetworking system 100. In one embodiment, a third party vendor may beused to assign users of the social networking system 100 to householdsextracted from external household data 110 to protect the privacy ofusers. The data gathered by the data gathering module 300 may includeuser profiles, actions captured by the social networking system 100 onobjects internal and external to the social networking system 100,social graph information extracted from edge objects 106 and contentobjects 108, location information extracted from user profile objects102, edge objects 106, and content objects 108, external household data110 such as department of motor vehicle registration records, magazinesubscriptions, catalog mailers, voter registration records, and creditagency records, as well as timeline data 112 that includes life eventssuch as graduations, marriages, moving to a new city, and births ofchildren.

The statistical analysis module 302 analyzes received information aboutusers on the social networking system 100 to predict householdmemberships of the users. In one embodiment, the statistical analysismodule 302 analyzes the information received about a user and searchesfor one or more households that match the user. Using factors such asprevious names, date of birth, location, life events, and check-ins,potential households may be filtered to match the user. The statisticalanalysis module 302 may determine a probability that the user is amember of a household based on these factors. In one embodiment, socialgraph information is used to further determine a probability that a useris a member of a household based on other members of the household andwhether they are close connections to the user or whether they have afamilial relationship with the user. Statistical analysis may also beperformed by the statistical analysis module 302 to determine aprobability, based on the received information about the user linkingthe user to the household, that the user is a member of the householdbased on past predictions and historical household data.

Statistical analysis is also performed to improve the weights of thedifferent types of data used in data models and also used to measureperformance, such as providing an error rate. Statistical analysisinformation about the received household information may be used byadministrators of the social networking system 100 to provide bettersearch results to users, obtain a deeper understanding of users'household memberships, and provide better targeting criteria foradvertisers.

A user attribute analysis module 304 analyzes received informationlinking a user to a household object 116. User attributes, such as age,gender, location, profession, and interests, may be analyzed by the userattribute analysis module 304 to filter potential household objects 116for the user. In one embodiment, statistical analysis may be computed bythe statistical analysis module 302 based on one or more of the analyzeduser attributes. For example, a household with a thirty-four year oldmale married to a thirty-three year old female that subscribes to SportsIllustrated and Vogue magazines in Mountain View, Calif. may be matchedto a married couple of users that have matching user attributes of age,gender, social graph relationship status, and interests in sports andfashion. These factors may be weighted differently in a scoring model todetermine a confidence score for assigning users to households. Aninitial set of weights may be assigned by administrators of the socialnetworking system 100. The weights may be adjusted over time usingmachine learning algorithms based on user feedback and informationreceived about the accuracy of the household predictions, in oneembodiment. In another embodiment, the weights may be adjusted usingmachine learning methods based on data gathered by the social networkingsystem 100.

A confidence scoring module 306 generates a confidence score for eachhousehold membership prediction generated by the household predictionmodule 114. A confidence score may be determined based on a scoringmodel for the household predictions. Confidence scores may range from 0to 100. A low confidence score, such as 10 or 15, may indicate thatthere are multiple households in which a user may be associated.Different types of households may have different scoring models fordetermining confidence scores. For example, a married household type mayheavily weight social graph relationship status information aboutmarried users in the calculation of the confidence score for thehousehold prediction. As another example, a family household type maycompute a confidence score using other information, such as bursts ofcommunications regarding the birth of a child, extracted tag informationfrom photo uploads of a baby with two users being tagged to one face,and status messages with keywords like “baby,” “birth,” and “child.”Thus, a married couple of users that have recently had a baby may beassigned to a household with confidence scores using two differentscoring models.

Scoring models used by the confidence scoring module 306 may use variousfactors in determining whether a user is a member of a household,including date of birth, previous names, location, check-in events,timeline data, social graph information, and interests. Weights may beused emphasize one factor over another, as determined by administratorsof the social networking system 100. Weights may also be trained bymachine learning algorithms based on received information linking usersof the social networking system 100 to households.

A heuristics analysis module 308 operates independently andasynchronously from the other modules in the household prediction module114. The heuristics analysis module 308 performs various steps to gatherinformation from the social networking system 100. For example, theaction log 104 includes actions that users perform on the socialnetworking system. The heuristics analysis module 308 may be used toanalyze the level of communications activity for particular users anddetermine whether those communications included certain keywords, suchas “baby” as described above.

Another use of the heuristics analysis module 308 includes gathering andanalyzing different types of information about a user's geographiclocation such as check-ins at places in a specific geographic location,attending events in the same geographic region, receiving requests forconnecting with users from the same geographic area, and geo-locationcodes embedded in photos and other communications, such as textmessages, uploaded to the social networking system by the user. Theheuristics analysis module 308 may conclude, for example, that althougha user may indicate in her profile that she currently lives in Oakland,Calif., she frequently attends events in affluent communities such asAtherton, Calif. and Menlo Park, Calif. and posts multiple check-ins athigh-end boutique shops in Palo Alto, Calif. In conjunction with thestatistical analysis module 302 and the location type analysis module304, the heuristics analysis module 308 may help to predict thereal-time location of the user as Palo Alto, Calif., even though herprofile information indicates that she lives in Oakland, Calif. Theheuristics analysis module 308 may be used to resolve these locationconflicts. This location information may be used as a factor inassigning users of a social networking system 100 to a household basedon the location of the household matching, or being close to, thelocation determined or inferred for a user.

The heuristics analysis module 308 may, in one embodiment, track auser's membership in households over a period of time. A user may be ina single household type, then get a roommate and be in a cohabitationnon-married household type. The user may then get married and be amember of a married household type and then have a baby and be a memberof a familial household type. As a result, the user may be associatedwith four different households, represented by four different householdobjects 116. The heuristics analysis module 308 may identify that theuser has progressed from one household type to another, meaning that themost current household is the only active household for that user. Thus,this information may be stored by the heuristics analysis module 308 inthe household objects 116 associated with the user.

A machine learning module 310 may be used in the household predictionmodule 114 to refine the weights used for making household predictions.In one embodiment, a social networking system 100 uses a machinelearning algorithm to retrain weights in the household prediction module114. Using the data gathered by the social networking system 100 thatlinks a user with a household, the machine learning module 310 may beused to train scoring models for determining confidence scores.

FIG. 4 illustrates a flow chart diagram depicting a process of assigningusers of a social networking system to households, in accordance with anembodiment of the invention. Identifying information about members of aplurality of households is received 402, each household comprising atleast one member. This household information may include externalhousehold data 110, social graph relationship information stored in thesocial networking system 100, and household information shared bythird-party vendors and provided to the social networking system 100.

After the identifying information about members of a plurality ofhouseholds is received 402, a plurality of attributes about the membersof the plurality of households is determined 404. In one embodiment, thesocial networking system 100 analyzes the attributes of the members ofthe plurality of households, such as age, gender, name, location,interests, and social graph relationship status, such as whether themembers are married, single, divorced, domestic partners, have children,have roommates, etc. These attributes may be determined 404 based oninformation listed in a database or based on information extracted fromexternal household data 110 such as vehicle registration records,marriage license records, voting records, income tax statements, andcredit agency reports.

Once a plurality of attributes about the members of the plurality ofhouseholds is determined 404, the plurality of households may befiltered 406 based on an attribute of a user of a social networkingsystem. For example, a user with a name “John Smith” living in Malibu,Calif. has the location attribute of Malibu, Calif. Thus, householdsthat are not located in Malibu, Calif. may be filtered 406. Theattribute of the user used to filter households may be selected by thesocial networking system 100 according to machine learning methods thatmay help identify attributes that are optimal for filtering households.As another example, households may be filtered according to the age,gender, and interests of a user named “Brittany S. Pierce” living inLima, Ohio, in addition to the name matching.

A confidence score is determined 408 for the user for membership in eachhousehold in the filtered household based on the identifying informationabout the members. A confidence score for each household is determined408 based on a scoring model that includes various factors, such asprevious names, date of birth, location, check-in events, interests,lifetime events, and social graph information. In one embodiment, ascoring model may be generated for each of the different types ofhouseholds, such as single household, married household, cohabitatingnon-married household, domestic partner household, family household withchildren, and so on.

After confidence scores are determined 408 for household predictions, ahousehold for the user is selected 410 based on the determinedconfidence scores. In one embodiment, more than one household may beselected 410 for the user based on the received information linking theuser to the multiple households. In another embodiment, a household maybe selected 410 based on the highest confidence score. The householdprediction and associated confidence score for the user are then stored412 in the social networking system.

SUMMARY

The foregoing description of the embodiments of the invention has beenpresented for the purpose of illustration; it is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed.Persons skilled in the relevant art can appreciate that manymodifications and variations are possible in light of the abovedisclosure.

Some portions of this description describe the embodiments of theinvention in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations ofoperations on information. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are commonly used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to convey the substance of their work effectively toothers skilled in the art. These operations, while describedfunctionally, computationally, or logically, are understood to beimplemented by computer programs or equivalent electrical circuits,microcode, or the like. Furthermore, it has also proven convenient attimes, to refer to these arrangements of operations as modules, withoutloss of generality. The described operations and their associatedmodules may be embodied in software, firmware, hardware, or anycombinations thereof.

Any of the steps, operations, or processes described herein may beperformed or implemented with one or more hardware or software modules,alone or in combination with other devices. In one embodiment, asoftware module is implemented with a computer program productcomprising a computer-readable medium containing computer program code,which can be executed by a computer processor for performing any or allof the steps, operations, or processes described.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to an apparatus forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the required purposes, and/or it may comprise ageneral-purpose computing device selectively activated or reconfiguredby a computer program stored in the computer. Such a computer programmay be stored in a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storagemedium, or any type of media suitable for storing electronicinstructions, which may be coupled to a computer system bus.Furthermore, any computing systems referred to in the specification mayinclude a single processor or may be architectures employing multipleprocessor designs for increased computing capability.

Embodiments of the invention may also relate to a product that isproduced by a computing process described herein. Such a product maycomprise information resulting from a computing process, where theinformation is stored on a non-transitory, tangible computer readablestorage medium and may include any embodiment of a computer programproduct or other data combination described herein.

Finally, the language used in the specification has been principallyselected for readability and instructional purposes, and it may not havebeen selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter.It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be limited notby this detailed description, but rather by any claims that issue on anapplication based hereon. Accordingly, the disclosure of the embodimentsof the invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, ofthe scope of the invention, which is set forth in the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving a plurality ofinformation items about a user of a social networking system; generatinga household object associated with the user in the social networkingsystem based on the plurality of information items about the user;determining one or more members of a household represented by thehousehold object in the social networking system based on the receivedplurality of information items about the user, where the user is amember of the household; and storing the household object in associationwith the determined one or members of the household in the socialnetworking system.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving aplurality of information items about a user of a social networkingsystem comprises: retrieving household data about the user from externalresources based on a name of the user and an address of the userextracted from a user profile for the user stored in the socialnetworking system.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein household dataabout the user retrieved from external resources further comprises oneor more records from a department of motor vehicles.
 4. The method ofclaim 2, wherein household data about the user retrieved from externalresources further comprises one or more records from a tax agency. 5.The method of claim 2, wherein household data about the user retrievedfrom external resources further comprises one or more records from amagazine publisher.
 6. The method of claim 2, wherein household dataabout the user retrieved from external resources further comprises oneor more records from a postal service agency.
 7. The method of claim 2,wherein household data about the user retrieved from external resourcesfurther comprises one or more records from a voter registration agency.8. The method of claim 2, wherein household data about the userretrieved from external resources further comprises one or more recordsfrom a credit agency.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein determining oneor more members of a household comprises: determining a spouse of theuser to be a member of the household, where the spouse comprises anotheruser of the social networking system married to the user based onrelationship information included in a user profile of the user and thespouse.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining one or moremembers of a household comprises: determining a child of the user to bea member of the household, where the child comprises another user of thesocial networking system connected to the user based on relationshipinformation included in a user profile of the user and the child. 11.The method of claim 1, wherein determining one or more members of ahousehold comprises: determining a roommate of the user to be a memberof the household, where the roommate comprises another user of thesocial networking system having an equivalent address as the user basedon an address of the user extracted from a user profile for the userstored in the social networking system.
 12. The method of claim 1,wherein determining one or more members of a household comprises:determining a particular user connected to the user in the socialnetworking system to be a member of the household, where the socialnetworking system has determined a social graph correlation between theparticular user and the user based on a plurality of affinity scoresbetween the particular user and the user exceeding a predeterminedthreshold.
 13. A method comprising: retrieving a plurality ofinformation items about a user of a social networking system;determining one or more membership scores for the user for one or morehouseholds in the social networking system using a scoring model basedon the plurality of information items about the user; selecting ahousehold from the one or more households in the social networkingsystem based on the one or more memberships scores for the user; andstoring an association of the selected household with the user in thesocial networking system.
 14. The method of claim 13, whereindetermining one or more membership scores for the user for one or morehouseholds in the social networking system using a scoring model basedon the plurality of information items about the user comprises:retrieving a relationship status of the user as an information item ofthe retrieved plurality of information items; retrieving a scoring modelfor the user based on the retrieved relationship status of the user; anddetermining a membership score for the user for one or more householdsin the social networking system using the retrieved scoring model basedon the plurality of information items.
 15. The method of claim 13,wherein determining one or more membership scores for the user for oneor more households in the social networking system using a scoring modelbased on the plurality of information items about the user comprises:retrieving a life event of the user as an information item of theretrieved plurality of information items; retrieving a scoring model forthe user based on the retrieved life event of the user; and determininga membership score for the user for one or more households in the socialnetworking system using the retrieved scoring model based on theplurality of information items.
 16. The method of claim 13, where ahousehold comprises one or more household properties.
 17. The method ofclaim 16, where a household property comprises a single household type.18. The method of claim 16, where a household property comprises amarried household type.
 19. The method of claim 16, where a householdproperty comprises a roommate household type.
 20. The method of claim16, where a household property comprises a family household type. 21.The method of claim 16, where a household property comprises an extendedfamily household type.
 22. The method of claim 16, where a householdproperty comprises one or more interests associated with one or moremembers of the household.
 23. The method of claim 16, where a householdproperty comprises a geographical location.
 24. The method of claim 16,where a household property comprises one or more genders associated withone or members of the household.
 25. The method of claim 16, where ahousehold property comprises one or more ages associated with one ormembers of the household.
 26. A non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium storing executable computer program instructions, theinstructions executable to perform steps comprising: receiving aplurality of information items about a user of a social networkingsystem; generating a household object associated with the user in thesocial networking system based on the plurality of information itemsabout the user; determining one or more members of a householdrepresented by the household object in the social networking systembased on the received plurality of information items about the user,where the user is a member of the household; and storing the householdobject in association with the determined one or members of thehousehold in the social networking system.
 27. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 26, wherein receiving aplurality of information items about a user of a social networkingsystem comprises: retrieving household data about the user from externalresources based on a name of the user and an address of the userextracted from a user profile for the user stored in the socialnetworking system.
 28. The non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium of claim 27, wherein household data about the user retrieved fromexternal resources further comprises one or more records from adepartment of motor vehicles.
 29. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 27, wherein household data about the userretrieved from external resources further comprises one or more recordsfrom a tax agency.
 30. The non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium of claim 27, wherein household data about the user retrieved fromexternal resources further comprises one or more records from a magazinepublisher.
 31. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium ofclaim 27, wherein household data about the user retrieved from externalresources further comprises one or more records from a postal serviceagency.
 32. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim27, wherein household data about the user retrieved from externalresources further comprises one or more records from a voterregistration agency.
 33. The non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium of claim 27, wherein household data about the user retrieved fromexternal resources further comprises one or more records from a creditagency.
 34. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim26, wherein determining one or more members of a household comprises:determining a spouse of the user to be a member of the household, wherethe spouse comprises another user of the social networking systemmarried to the user based on relationship information included in a userprofile of the user and the spouse.
 35. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 26, wherein determining one ormore members of a household comprises: determining a child of the userto be a member of the household, where the child comprises another userof the social networking system connected to the user based onrelationship information included in a user profile of the user and thechild.
 36. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim26, wherein determining one or more members of a household comprises:determining a roommate of the user to be a member of the household,where the roommate comprises another user of the social networkingsystem having an equivalent address as the user based on an address ofthe user extracted from a user profile for the user stored in the socialnetworking system.
 37. The non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium of claim 26, wherein determining one or more members of ahousehold comprises: determining a particular user connected to the userin the social networking system to be a member of the household, wherethe social networking system has determined a social graph correlationbetween the particular user and the user based on a plurality ofaffinity scores between the particular user and the user exceeding apredetermined threshold.
 38. A non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium storing executable computer program instructions, theinstructions executable to perform steps comprising: retrieving aplurality of information items about a user of a social networkingsystem; determining one or more membership scores for the user for oneor more households in the social networking system using a scoring modelbased on the plurality of information items about the user; selecting ahousehold from the one or more households in the social networkingsystem based on the one or more memberships scores for the user; andstoring an association of the selected household with the user in thesocial networking system.
 39. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 38, wherein determining one or more membershipscores for the user for one or more households in the social networkingsystem using a scoring model based on the plurality of information itemsabout the user comprises: retrieving a relationship status of the useras an information item of the retrieved plurality of information items;retrieving a scoring model for the user based on the retrievedrelationship status of the user; and determining a membership score forthe user for one or more households in the social networking systemusing the retrieved scoring model based on the plurality of informationitems.
 40. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim38, wherein determining one or more membership scores for the user forone or more households in the social networking system using a scoringmodel based on the plurality of information items about the usercomprises: retrieving a life event of the user as an information item ofthe retrieved plurality of information items; retrieving a scoring modelfor the user based on the retrieved life event of the user; anddetermining a membership score for the user for one or more householdsin the social networking system using the retrieved scoring model basedon the plurality of information items.
 41. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 38, where a householdcomprises one or more household properties.
 42. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises a single household type.
 43. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises a married household type.
 44. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises a roommate household type.
 45. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises a family household type.
 46. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises an extended family household type.
 47. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises one or more interests associated with one or more members ofthe household.
 48. The non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumof claim 41, where a household property comprises a geographicallocation.
 49. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium ofclaim 41, where a household property comprises one or more gendersassociated with one or members of the household.
 50. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 41, where a household propertycomprises one or more ages associated with one or members of thehousehold.